There was no one listening to them. A guitarist was playing on a stage across the restaurant/bar’s courtyard and the tables in the place were filled. A thatch roof covered the little area where they sat, next to a secondary bar. People were talking loudly and the music was playing—not easy for anyone to overhear anyone else.
The cast and crew were scattered about in the general area where they sat. Only Andrew, Vanessa, and Joe were at her table. The three, Danni thought, were really beautiful people. Vanessa was just about bone thin with perfect features, sleek dark hair, and huge sea-green eyes. Joe was picture perfect; about six feet, dark, leanly muscled, and very handsome. Even the director, Andrew, was pretty beautiful; blond, dark-eyed, and intense.
“Really?” Danni asked. “That’s the rumor going around town?”
Vanessa nodded. “The guy they found alive at the cemetery was raving that a zombie nun had done it all. He was heard by Sally Jenson who is friends with Sasha Sierra—our costumer. Apparently, friends told friends who told friends—and the cops are going crazy because of it.”
“Think it will help us—or hurt us?” Joe asked Andrew.
Andrew shrugged. “Who knows? Our movie isn’t about a killer zombie nun.”
“Close enough!” Vanessa said, turning to Danni. “You’ve heard about Robert the Doll, right?”
“I’m pretty new to Key West,” Danni said.
“Robert is world famous,” Vanessa said. “In 1904, he was a gift given by a nanny to Robert Eugene Otto. Creepy doll—you can see it at the East Martello Museum. Anyway, the doll had a life of its own, according to history. Robert Eugene Otto called the doll Robert after himself. There were all kinds of rumors—the boy grew up to be an artist and married an artist but, supposedly, the doll moved around and looked out the windows of the house—it’s a gorgeous bed and breakfast now, by the way. Anyway, it was suspected that Robert Otto beat his wife—and blamed it on the doll! Bad dolls through filmdom have supposedly been modeled after Robert. Anyway, our film is on Lucinda. She’s a creepy designer-store mannequin. Haunted and horrible—and attacking men by night on the streets of Key West!”
“Ah. Sounds great,” Danni said.
“Oh, it is! You see, Lucinda keeps watching this one man who comes in with his girlfriend. She’s in love with the man—and hates the girlfriend. There’s a Romanian gypsy working in the store and she uses gypsy magic to sell things and her gypsy magic gives Lucinda life. At first, she’s okay. She goes out at night and loves the nightlife! But then the man Lucinda has fallen love with comes into the shop with his girlfriend. The girlfriend accidentally knocks Lucinda over and she’s broken and falling apart—and furious and hateful. That’s when she starts stalking the streets—looking to kill the girlfriend. Me!” Vanessa says happily.
“And a bunch of extras die—gruesomely!” Joe said. “I’m the handsome dude the mannequin falls in love with,” he said, grinning.
“Who plays the mannequin?” Danni asked.
“That would be me!” she heard from another table.
A pretty young woman stood up and came over to the table. She was tall and lean and seemed thrilled to death with her role. If Danni remembered right, she was the player who had been introduced to Danni as being a hotel clerk by day.
“It’s a great role—I can’t believe it! I have a role just like the part that made Arianna Palacio so famous!” she said. “She was in Zombie Nuns of the Apocalypse—so good! I’m Sasha, remember? Sasha Bernard.”
“Of course, Sasha. Well, that sounds incredibly exciting,” Danni said, but she frowned and asked, “We’re you in Zombie Nuns from the Apocalypse?”
“Oh, no! This is my first role. But, Vanessa was in that movie. I’m so jealous!”
Vanessa looked at Danni and grimaced. “Corpse #3,” she said. “Not much of a role. But, it was a fun set. Arianna Palacio was so nice. She asked all the time while we were filming if everyone was all right.”
“Hey, you think Arianna Palacio is down here—running round and killing people in the cemetery?” Joe asked.
“Hey, we shouldn’t joke,” Andrew said. “Three people are dead.”
“Pretty chilling, huh?” Vanessa asked, shivering suddenly. “I mean—I was in that movie. And it does sound like Arianna Palacio is in Key West, running around, killing people!”
“Do you have mannequins made to look like you in this movie?” Danni asked Sasha.
Sasha laughed and glanced at Andrew. “Not in the budget. I’m my own stunt person!”
“But, there were a bunch of mannequins of the zombie nun, right?” Danni asked.
“Yeah—actually, Colby Kennedy owns one of them. I’m not sure about the others. There are four more of them somewhere. I entered the bidding,” Andrew said. “But—it went high. And I wanted to make this movie.”
“I think it will definitely be a big hit,” Joe said, shrugging. “Sad as it may seem, I believe that what’s happening here now will be major when we’re promoting Lucinda. People are ghoulish. They’ll wonder what was really going on during every hour of our filming.”
“I could be a star!” Sasha said.